Russia

An extensive programme of experiments was conducted in the former USSR on transfer of radionuclides to a wide range of different agricultural animals. Only a few of these studies were made available in the English language literature or taken into account in international reviews of gastrointestinal uptake. The paper gives extended information on Russian research on radionuclide absorption in the gut of farm animals performed in controlled field and laboratory experiments from the 1960s to the current time. The data presented in the paper, together with English language values, will be used to provide recommended values of absorption specifically for farm animals within the revision of the IAEA Handbook of Parameter Values IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency, 1994. Handbook of Parameter Values for the Prediction of Radionuclide Transfer in Temperate Environments, IAEA technical reports series No. 364. International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna].

Short of the war, the destruction, and the massive loss of life, Ukraine is in many ways similar to the Gulf crisis in which the UAE, together with Saudi Arabia, led a 3.5-year-long economic and diplomatic boycott of Qatar that, like the Russian invasion, was designed to hollow out the sovereignty of a neighbouring state.

Les Slaves de l'Est (Biélorusses, Russes et Ukrainiens) possèdent une très riche tradition de chants épiques et religieux qui bien souvent renvoient à un fond très archaïque, un fond mythologique qui n'a de chrétien que l'apparence. Ces chants épiques russes (les bylines) et ukrainiens (les dumy), ces formules et incantations biélorusses, ne mentionnent évidemment pas d'antiques divinités slaves, mais ils font appels à des conceptions et des récits qui peuvent remonter à des temps bien antérieurs à la christianisation, et qui de ce fait peuvent être comparés à d'autres mythologies européennes. Textes traduits du russe, du biélorusse et de l'ukrainien.

2e édition.
Extraits: introduction, premier chant, bibliographie et table des matières

E-books, print on demand, online sales sites, the boom in mobile phones… new technologies are profoundly transforming the way texts circulate. Developing countries, however, which face serious limitations in infrastructure, have a considerable challenge ahead of them.

What new actors are emerging in the countries of the South, outside of the powerful platforms already existing in the US, Europe and Japan? Is it conceivable that there may be an autonomous evolution of digital publications in developing countries, entirely independent of the richest nations? What support policies could be implemented to promote the growth of this new industry and accompany traditional actors in the process of adapting to the changes involved?

The digital experiences undertaken in the South suggest that new technologies represent a great opportunity for developing countries – particularly in terms of diffusion –, but on the condition that local entrepreneurs seek out original models adapted to the concrete needs of their communities.

This paper presents a realist reflection on the crisis in Ukraine from the perspective of the Western powers, in particular, that of the United States. Its theoretical argumentation is built on the basis of thoughts of contemporary realist minded scholars and geopoliticians, but, concomitantly, criticizes the contradictory nuances in their approaches. The paper analyses the consequences of the Ukraine crisis as an accomplishment from the Western point of view and diverges from other realist scholars who consider it as a mistake of the West. It argues that the United States has successfully completed its geopolitical mission concerning Ukraine by breaking it away from Moscow's sphere of influence, therefore, now it can seek to de-escalate tensions with Russia over Ukraine and redirect its focus on other threats, such as the rise of China.

Baha’u’llah’s Bishārāt (Glad-Tidings):
A Proclamation to Scholars and Statesmen
Christopher Buck and Youli A. Ioannesyan
Baha’i Studies Review 16 (2010): 3–28.

This article is a historical and textual study of the one of the major writings of Baha’u’llah: the Lawḥ-i Bishārāt (‘Tablet of Glad-Tidings’), revealed circa 1891, and advances new theories as to its provenance and purpose. The ‘Tablet of Glad-Tidings’ is a selective compendium of Baha’u’llah’s laws and principles, sequentially presented in a series of fifteen ‘Glad-Tidings.’ As the Arabic term, bishārāt, suggests, these ‘Glad-Tidings’ were a public announcement of some of the essential teachings of the new Baha’i religion. The ‘Glad-Tidings’ is the most extensive of several ‘Tablets’ by Baha’u’llah that present key teachings in a numbered structure. The Glad-Tidings may, in part, be regarded as serially articulated ‘world reforms’ intermixed with religious reforms emanating from Baha’u’llah in his professed role as ‘World Reformer.’ The ‘Glad-Tidings’ also functioned analogously (albeit anachronistically) to a press release, serving not only as a public proclamation, but to rectify the inaccuracies and gross misrepresentations that had previously circulated in print. Intended for widespread translation and publication, the Glad-Tidings was sent to scholars — notably Russian orientalist, Baron Viktor Rosen (1849–1908) and Cambridge Orientalist, Edward Granville Browne (1862–1926) — and possibly pre-revolutionary Russian statesmen as well. As a ‘Proclamatory Aqdas,’ the Tablet of Glad-Tidings was part of a much broader proclamation by Baha’u’llah, who proclaimed his mission to the political and religious leaders of the world. This study will argue that the Baha’u’llah may have revealed the Tablet of Glad-Tidings for E.G. Browne — or rather through him, since Baha’u’llah evidently intended that Browne should translate and publish the Bishārāt in order to make the nature of the Baha'i teachings more widely known. This would then correct the distortions that had previously been published regarding Baha’u’llah's purpose and the nature of the religion that he founded, thereby, promoting a public awareness that a new world religion was on the horizon of modernity.

Slovakia’s relations with the states of Eastern Europe not only have a bilateral impact, but contain geopolitical, security and economic dimensions as well. This article analyzes the domestic, bilateral and multilateral aspects of relations between Slovakia and Russia before and after the parliamentary elections of 1998, when Slovakia adopted a pro-Western course aimed at EU and NATO membership. The article also focuses on bilateral relations with Ukraine, where Slovakia is among the most active supporters of Ukraine’s future EU membership. The final sections analyze the Eastern policy of Slovakia – particularly within the framework of the EU’s Eastern Partnership and the Visegrad Group – as well as Slovakia’s relations with the new Eastern European partners, such as Belarus, Moldova and Georgia, as target countries of Slovakia’s “soft power.”

Throughout the course of human history, the idea of great continents have been subjected to contention and debate. The word 'Continent' does not represents the natural and objective division of the land surface, as a substitute, the idea of 'Continent' is a discursive object, which encompasses history, specific patterns of society, and signifies the existence of unique civilization. In this regard, the word 'Continent' is not a pure geographical concept rather a meta-geographical phenomenon. Moreover, in the meta-geographical version, the idea of the great continents such as Greater Europe, Great West and Greater Eurasia has been mystified, mythologized and imagined on ontological, civilizational and messianic grounds. When it comes to the idea of 'Greater Eurasia', it was the intellectual contribution of famous Eurasianists such as Nikolai Berdyaev, Vladimir Soloviev, Nikolay Danilevsky, Lev Gumilev and Alexander Dugin, who had developed the ideology of Eurasianism or the idea of Eurasia. These scholars have concealed the idea of Eurasia across political, social, theological, cultural, economic and civilizational spheres. Moreover, all these intellectuals were Russians, who pioneered the idea of 'Greater Eurasia' from the geographical standpoint. Basically, it was the concept of 'Russian Idea' with its spiritual orientation, coined by the Russian philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev that surrounded the Eurasian ideology by adjoining Russian Universalism with Russian particularism. As Berdyaev asserted; "the whole Russian idea declares Russians as people belonging to religious type and are religious in their spiritual make-up". Among the Eurasianists, it was the nineteenth century's Russian philosopher and intellectual Nikolay Danilevsky (1822-1885), who had developed the idea of Eurasia surrounding the cultural and spiritual lines.

L’intento di questo lavoro è presentare un quadro che sia il più completo possibile nell’analizzare il percorso dell’Unione delle Repubbliche Socialiste Sovietiche dalla sua nascita, nel 1922, fino al suo crollo, nel 1991 e, successivamente, la delicata fase di transizione russa dal comunismo all’economia di mercato, cercando di mettere in luce i problemi incontrati dal Paese nell’instaurare la democrazia. L'ultima parte analizza la figura della Banca Europea per la Ricostruzione e lo Sviluppo ed il suo ruolo specifico nella delicata fase di transizione economica della Russia.

Patterns in the Population History of Northern Eurasia from the Mesolithic to the Early Bronze Age, Based on Craniometry and Genetics In memory of Oleg Balanovsky This study examines the craniometric differentiation of Northern Eurasian groups with reference to genetic and partly linguistic facts. Measurements of 66 series of male crania from that territory, dating to various periods from the Mesolithic to the Early Bronze Age, were subjected to statistical methods especially destined for detecting spatial patterns, specifi cally gradients. Using the nonmetric multidimensional scaling of the matrix of D 2 distances corrected for sample size, a two-dimensional projection of group constellation was generated, and a minimum spanning tree, showing the shortest path between group centroids in the multivariate space, was constructed. East-west clines in Northern Eurasia, detected by both genetic and craniometric traits, likely indicate not so much gene fl ow as isolation by distance, resulting from an incomplete evolutionary divergence of various fi lial groups constituting the Boreal meta-population. The western fi lial component, which, in Siberia and Eastern Central Asia, is mostly represented by Afanasyevans, has evidently made little contribution to the genetic makeup of later populations. The eastern fi lial component, which had appeared in the Cis-Baikal region from across Lake Baikal no later than the Neolithic, admixed with the autochthonous Paleosiberian component. The latter's principal marker-the ANE autosomal component-had been present in Siberia since the Upper Paleolithic. Likewise autochthonous were both Eurasian formations-Northern and Southern; statis tical analysis has made it possible to make these more inclusive, whereby the former has been expanded in the eastern direction to include the Kuznetsk Basin, and the latter westwards, to the Middle Irtysh. Nothing suggests that Eastern European groups had taken part in the origin of either the Northern Eurasian formation or the proto-Uralic groups.

What is the relationship between cyber activities conducted by Russia at home and abroad? What role do cyber operations play as an instrument of Russia’s coercive diplomacy? How different is Russia from other cyber powers, and how do we know for sure if the Kremlin is behind certain cyberattacks that have been attributed to it?

This Chaillot Paper examines these and other key questions as it explores how Russia’s increasingly assertive behaviour in cyberspace has lent new urgency to the debate about cybersecurity in the West. It focuses on what lessons EU member states have learned from recent events, and on how the EU and NATO have responded to these cyber challenges on the diplomatic, political and security fronts. The paper argues that Russia’s aggressive use of cyber tools has led the US and many Europeans states to adopt more defensive cyber strategies, and that as a result Russia may have lost the strategic advantage it has hitherto enjoyed in what is becoming an ever-more contested domain.

In this paper we discuss why and how Russia needs to shield herself from the negative consequences of the US dollar’s worldwide financial domination. The apparent political will of the Russian regime to transform the ruble into a reserve currency has to cope with the objective reality of a ruble perceived as a nonreliable store of value. The proposition of starting to settle energy exports in rubles is explored. The paper is organized around a series of chapters dealing with political, economic and financial matters pertinent to the actual Russian predicament, including an analysis of the ruble’s weaknesses and strengths. In the conclusion the author argues that the ruble in its present form is way too weak to become a hard currency and therefore a reserve currency. The case for linking the ruble to gold is proposed in parallel with a cautious increment of the ruble’s use in Russia’s energy contracts, bearing in mind that the Russian economic reality is partially that of a petrostate.

"Words and Phrases, Unchanged for Centuries.

Containing a rich glossary and in excess of 300 words and phrases, the texts demonstrate the strength of the Macedonian language through preservation.

Following is a comparison of sentences between the texts and the Macedonian
dialect of Bitola as spoken today.

16th cent., Kostur dialect
21st cent., Bitola dialect

Gospodine, brate, da si zdrav, da si prost, ostavi ni da spime, ela da jame, i da pieme, dol da pojdime, da rabotime.
Gospodine, brate, da si zdrav, da si prost, ostai ne da spiame, ela da jaime, i da piame, dolu da pojdime, da rabotime.

Imate hljap-o da kupime, imate vino da kupime, ot koja strana da pojdime vo
Bogasko.
Imate lep da kupime, imate vino da kupime, od koja strana da pojdime vo
Bogatsko.

As can be clearly noticed, most of the vocabulary and grammar is identical.
All of the elements that would later be required to rejuvinate the Macedonian people as they were shaking off centuries of subjugation, were present during this period. The language of the people had solidified, a tradition of heraldry and symbolism had developed which incorporated the emblem of a rapant lion and historical figures from Macedonia's past, and the churches continued preserve the local customs and serve as cultural centres for the population. The significance of all these elements together cannot be overstated, the language of medieval Macedonia is the same as the language of the Macedonians today. Unfortunately, only a small portion of the larger amount of Macedonian literature from the Middle Ages has survived, much of it being looted and destroyed by Greek-speaking officials, clerics and teachers. Nevertheless, Macedonian as a language reached its current form centuries before the creation of the Balkan states in the 19th and 20th centuries. "

А. Н. Чумиков, М. П. Бочаров, С. А. Самойленко. Реклама и связи с общественностью : профессиональные компетенции : учебное пособие.

В настоящем учебном пособии впервые в российской практике комплексно представлены содержательные аспекты рекламы и связей с общественностью, а также других видов современных маркетинговых коммуникаций.
За основу разделов книги взяты направления развития профессиональных компетенций, содержащиеся в утвержденных вариантах и проектных разработках Федерального государственного образовательного стандарта по специальности "Реклама и связи с общественностью". В учебном пособии аккумулированы теоретические разработки, а также многочисленные примеры из современной российской, европейской, американской практики.

Pussy Riot’s surprise punk prayer at the altar of Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ Our Savior instigated significant controversy in Russia and resulted in the conviction of three Pussy Riot members on the charge of “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred.” While the Russian Orthodox Church swiftly condemned the performance as blasphemous, Pussy Riot has contended that its punk prayer is consistent with the message of the Gospels. This study investigates the punk prayer controversy in relation to the figure of the holy fool, a radical behavioral model canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church and secularized in Russia’s literary and artistic traditions.

In the wake of the 2014 Ukrainian revolution and Russia’s subsequent war on Ukraine, Russian political thinker Aleksandr Dugin has become an object of many western analyses of Russia’s foreign policy. Various media have called Dugin “the mad mystic who inspired Russia’s leader” or “Putin’s brain”. Indeed, the man behind Russia’s Neo-Eurasianism has received significant attention and his ideas have evidently entered mainstream political thought.

The European Union (EU) has closely correlated different aspects of the peace process in Bosnia with progress towards European accession. The ‘power of attraction’ of EU membership would presumably induce the Bosnian authorities to accept the adaptation costs of political and economic transformation. However, the Europeanisation approach has not produced the expected results. The track record of the EU’s policies towards Bosnia represents a paradigmatic case of what would happen if almost nothing works as efficiently as in the case of the countries that joined the EU in 2004 and 2007. The article investigates the causes of EU policy failure in Bosnia and claims that the EU has not effectively responded to three challenges: 1) adjust the process to the needs of an ethnically divided post-war state; 2) preserve the credibility of accession conditionality, and 3) convey the proper messages on how to comply with EU rules. Therefore, the article argues for a more cohesive and consistent EU approach towards Bosnia.

Slavs in the Making takes a fresh look at archaeological evidence from parts of Slavic-speaking Europe north of the Lower Danube, including the present-day territories of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia.

Nothing is known about what the inhabitants of those remote lands called themselves during the sixth century, or whether they spoke a Slavic language. The book engages critically with the archaeological evidence from these regions, and questions its association with the "Slavs" that has often been taken for granted. It also deals with the linguistic evidence—primarily names of rivers and other bodies of water—that has been used to identify the primordial homeland of the Slavs, and from which their migration towards the Lower Danube is believed to have started. It is precisely in this area that sociolinguistics can offer a serious alternative to the language tree model currently favoured in linguistic paleontology. The question of how best to explain the spread of Slavic remains a controversial issue. This book attempts to provide an answer, and not just a critique of the method of linguistic paleontology upon which the theory of the Slavic migration and homeland relies.

The book proposes a model of interpretation that builds upon the idea that (Common) Slavic cannot possibly be the result of Slavic migration. It addresses the question of migration in the archaeology of early medieval Eastern Europe, and makes a strong case for a more nuanced interpretation of the archaeological evidence of mobility. It will appeal to scholars and students interested in medieval history, migration, and the history of Eastern and Central Europe.

In an age where nothing seems clear-cut it is wonderful to have a hero and an even clearer villain. Putin is the new Hitler, an obsessive maniac with no respect for human life. The Ukrainians, by contrast, remind us of our parents and grandparents and their pluck during World War II, when Britain stood alone. But, of course, nothing is ever quite so simple. So, at this stage in the war, what is the balance of the good, the bad and the ugly?

The Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 was marked by the securitization of the political identity of Russian speakers living in Crimea. Discourse from Russian President Vladimir Putin as well as other important Russian political actors all framed the situation in Crimea as one that required exceptional and emergency measures from the Russian state. How did this happen? This thesis aims to examine how Russia securitized political identity by using methodology and discourse analysis from the Copenhagen School of Security Studies. Beyond simply a discourse analysis, this research also aims to determine what the actual reasons were for the annexation. In doing so, the thesis conducts a historical and cultural analysis of Russian-Ukrainian relations, examines the international, domestic, and local factors of the annexation, summarizes the Russian explanation for their actions, thoroughly analyzes the relevant discourse on the subject, asks what the actual reasons for annexation may have been, examines a similar case study of South Ossetia and asks what the implications of this securitizing move will be. Particularly interesting is that the role of political identity as a tool to be securitized will most likely remain geopolitical in nature. Further, the thesis overall makes a claim that abstract ideas that are securitized do not need to be present objective threats to the state. They simply need to be presented as such, The framing of the narrative surrounding the Crimean annexation is not only interesting due to its manipulation of facts, but to its ultimate circling of the question of whether Russia and Ukraine share a common historical memory, as the Russian explanation would have observers believe.

Trabalhadores do Brasil, vivemos em tempos confusos e incertos. O destino sorri para o Brasil de forma bastante enigmática. A guerra na Ucrânia e os ocorridos recentes no leste europeu e seus desdobramentos no sistema internacional e na economia global empurram o Brasil cada vez mais para um ponto de não retorno, cuja estratégia brasileira em política internacional tenta evitar a qualquer custo, sem muito sucesso, diante de uma gigantesca pressão internacional. Neste artigo iremos tratar sobre como tais eventos podem impactar no futuro do Brasil e na qualidade de vida dos trabalhadores brasileiros.

In light of the recent passing of the neoliberal geostrategic tactician, Zbigniew Brzezinski, I felt it was time to revisit his 1997 text "Grand Chessboard". Within this book, US Foreign policy objectives were so succinctly explained as the geopolitical landscape moved so turbulently into the beginning decades of the 21st Century.

Despite his vision of American foreign policy as "benign and visionary", the tone of Brzezinski's text is concerned with preserving U.S hegemony as the world's "first truly global superpower".  He saw Eurasia as the "Grand Chessboard" on which this struggle to maintain "continental equilibrium" was to be played out on the road to establishing global governance.

"The defeat and collapse of the Soviet Union was the final step in the rapid ascendance of a Western Hemisphere power, the United States, as the sole and, indeed, the first truly global power. ... 

... it is imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges, capable of dominating Eurasia and thus also of challenging America."

The insertion of American idealism into the politics of the Eurasian landmass first occurred with The U.S entry into the First World War, and continued after the Second World War with the ideological struggle with the Soviets during the Cold War. The fate of the continental landmass became dominated by the power struggle between the two major superpowers. 

The struggle was between a great sea power (the U.S) and a great land power (the U.S.S.R), but the decisive area of dispute took place in a central Asian country that still has vital strategic importance on the world stage. ...

Find Out More:
http://www.whenthenewsstops.org/2017/06/the-grand-chessboard-american-primacy.html

People abused by angry discipline as children, may tend to abuse or overly punish other people or themselves for perceived wrongs in their adult life. In some individuals, aggressive personality traits may be genetically inherited. The aggressive personality may feel weakened by having guidelines or boundaries for anger. Anger is a normal human emotion, and these guidelines can help express anger in a healthy way.

This paper focuses on the role of contemporary art in international relations and world politics. In IR, art is often examined within the framework of cultural diplomacy, country branding, and soft power, or approached as a site of resistance. We argue that the concept of heteronomy offers an alternative conceptual framework for analysing contemporary art in world politics. It highlights the interaction of various fields such as art, commerce, the state and media. We concretise this approach with an analysis of the Venice Biennale. We show that the Biennale is heteronomous in the sense of being an arena where actors from various fields struggle for power by accumulating different types of capital. We focus our analysis on the Russian national pavilion in 2011–2015 and show how the efforts of the country’s elite to legitimise its position are intertwined with the projects of the state, sponsors, artists, curators and art market actors.

2013 yılından günümüze kadar Ukrayna genelinde yaşanan iç olaylar ve bu olaylarla ilintili dış etkenler, inişli çıkışlı karşılıklı etkileşimler neticesinde günümüze kadar gelişim göstermiş ve Kırım özelinde sıcak çatışma ihtimalini bünyesinde barındıran ihtilaflı bir konu haline gelmiştir. Kırım'ın Karadeniz'de sıcak denizlere açılan bir pencere ve önemli bir deniz üssü olması nedeniyle taşıdığı jeo-stratejik önem başta büyük devletler olmak üzere tüm dünyanın ilgisinin bu bölge üzerinde yoğunlaşmasına neden olmuştur.
Yaşanan bu gelişmeler Kırım ile derin tarihi ve kültürel bağları bulunan ayrıca Türk Boğazları ve 1965 km.lik Karadeniz sahil şeridi nedeniyle bir Karadeniz ülkesi olan Türkiye'yi yakından ilgilendirmektedir. Ancak 2002 yılından itibaren temel ilkeleri radikal bir şekilde evrilen, bu evrimin neticesinde 2010 yılında Tunus'ta başlayan Arap Baharı'na gereğinden fazla angaje olan Türk Dış Politikası'nın Kırım meselesine hak ettiği önemi veremediği gözlemlenmiştir.
Öte yandan Kırım'ın Türk Dünyası açısından taşıdığı tarihi ve kültürel önemin yanı sıra Türkiye'nin güvenliği bakımından da önemli bir mesele olduğu değerlendirilmektedir. Özellikle Karadeniz havzasındaki dengelerin muhafaza edilmesinde ve Türkiye'nin Karadeniz güvenliğinin sağlanmasında Kırım kilit bir öneme sahiptir.
Bu çalışmada, tarihi verilerle güncel olaylar bir arada değerlendirilerek, Kırım'da yaşanan gelişmelerin Türkiye'nin güvenlik meselesi olduğu ve Türk Dış Politikasının bu meseleye yeterince ilgi göstermemesinin büyük bir eksiklik olduğu ortaya konulmaya çalışılacaktır.

This essay evaluates the role of Neorealism in the Ukraine Crisis. This crisis began with a deal being made with Russia over the EU which caused a West sponsored coup which Russia took great offense to. This led to the subsequent invasion of Crimea, a region of Ukraine with strong ethnic ties to Russia. Pro-Russian separatists also took up arms in other parts of Ukraine. Neorealism says that the events in the Ukraine are a product of Liberal dogma that the West constantly peddles to their own ends. Russia warned that if Ukraine were to become part of NATO it would cause major issues. The West failed to heed such a warning. For Liberals, Ukraine wanted to join NATO to maximise their national interests, to become part of an interdependent, cooperative, peaceful organisation that will benefit them by creating a common identity to help prevent conflict. For Constructivists, this scenario is about social interactions, not power politics. It is simply Ukraine trying to establish relationships with NATO and the Russians, not a blame game. Constructivists say perceptions over friends and enemies impact state behaviour. Ukraine choosing to align with NATO as a friendly makes them an enemy of Russia, as NATO is Russia's

Abstract: The security of demand for fossil fuels (crude oil, oil products, natural gas and coal) in the wider Central Europe is determined by energy intensity of economies, economic activity, access to maritime trade and availability of substitutes. Assuming that the Western Balkan countries are (collectively) potential providers of access to maritime trade and specific substitutes, their collective and individual governance (including cross border cooperation, use of infrastructure, urban planning, etc.) determines the actual use of that potential. If the quality of governance is not adequate, it represents an effective barrier to access for overseas traders (to use existing infrastructure), Central European traders (to trade substitutes) and investors into new
infrastructure. The introduction of inadequate governance is a device at disposal of incumbent suppliers to ensure the security of demand. The use of this device remains cost-effective as long as the costs are low, and the resource rents are high. Incumbent suppliers need a certain degree of coordination and coercive capacity of the state to avoid free riders and increase the cost-effectiveness of the device. Such barriers to trade tend to simultaneously increase the costs and risks of supplying energy to some EU consumers and the political risks for the EU as a whole. In the context of climate change, these barriers to access limit policy options and increase the social and political costs of transition to sustainable energy. The countries of the Western Balkan collectively refrain from utilising existing infrastructure and are maximising demand for boondoggle investments in new infrastructure, resource rents and financial liquidity. The likelihood of poverty reduction remains negligible low, while the risks to development aid providers are maximised.

In the 19th century, the emigration of Estonians gathered momentum and Estonian villages were founded on the vast territory of the Russian Empire. Having survived over several generations, these native Estonian-speaking villages can be considered linguistic enclaves outside their homeland. This article will give an overview of research expeditions into Estonian villages in Siberia and the Far East in the 1980s and 1990s. Initially, we treated the linguistic enclaves as a continuation of the map of Estonian dialects, hoping to find in the foreign-language(s) surrounded and isolated Estonian language features which, primarily as a result of the influence of standard Estonian, have disappeared from the dialects of homeland Estonia. In our further studies, we have taken into account developments in modern linguistics: whether to place emphasis on the original (authentic) or on developmental changes. In terms of language influences, we cannot forget contacts with local and regional langu...

Microbial methanogenesis at extreme conditions of saline alkaline soda lakes has, so far, been poorly investigated. Despite the obvious domination of sulfidogenesis as the therminal anaerobic process in hypersaline soda lakes of Kulunda Steppe (Altai, south-western Siberia), high concentrations of methane were detected in the anaerobic sediments. Potential activity measurements with different substrates gave results significantly deviating from what is commonly found in hypersaline habitats with neutral pH. In particular, not only a non-competitive methylotrophic pathway was active, but also lithotrophic and, in some cases, even acetate-dependent methanogenesis was found to be present in hypersaline soda lake sediments. All three pathways were functioning exclusively within the alkaline pH range between 8 and 10.5, while the salt concentration was the key factor influencing the activity. Methylotrophic and, in less extent, lithotrophic methanogenesis, was active up to soda-saturatin...